


cycles

by Amira_Illusion



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Although the first chapter is mostly, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, I don't know where this idea came from, I'd still tag it as, M/M, Panic Attack, Self-Indulgent, Slight Depiction of Bullying, Tsukishima Kei & Yamaguchi Tadashi Friendship, Yamaguchi Stands Up for Himself, Yamaguchi is not vibing, self deprication, very important, will come later
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:54:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25037323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amira_Illusion/pseuds/Amira_Illusion
Summary: "Yamaguchi." The voice isn't identifiable but makes him feel colder with dread anyway, a bubble of anxiety growing in his chest and making it hard to breathe. “We haven’t seen you in such a long time.”While turning to face the voice, he feels kind of floaty, like gravity has decided he no longer deserves its force. He comes face to face with 3 boys, all of them looking like they’re around his age. He doesn’t recognise any of their faces but he knows who they are.---It's a little confusing in the beginning but I hope what is happening gets clearer with time.
Relationships: Tsukishima Kei/Yamaguchi Tadashi
Comments: 2
Kudos: 29





	1. bright lights block out stars

**Author's Note:**

> I'm honestly not sure where this came from but I put too much effort in (and crave validation) to leave it to collect dust in my WIPs.

He feels cold.

That is the first thing that Yamaguchi registers when his consciousness returns. 

The chill doesn't seem to be coming from anywhere he can pinpoint, biting into him with sadistic strength anyway and numbing him to his very core.

When he plants his hands on textureless ground and pushes himself up, his vision blends and blurs. The sight is enough to plant a seed of nausea in his stomach, something akin to motion sickness gripping him. When it sharpens enough for him to see anything, he realises he's in a very familiar playground.

It'd have to be. He'd passed through it on the way to and back from elementary every single day and, though he tried to avoid the place, many times after that. Just standing here, disorientated, is enough to make him feel smaller.

He shivers, hands instinctively rubbing at his arms to warm himself up and to provide an ounce of comfort, watching with unsure curiosity as his breath mists.

Just what was happening?

His brain feels foggy the longer he thinks about that, mind stubbornly sticking to the present. 

He'd had volleyball practice, hadn't he? Still, that wasn't much help, he had practice nearly every single day.

But okay, he'd had practice and then he'd-

He frowned to himself, surveying the park again and hugging himself tighter, the chill persisting no matter how much he tried to warm himself up.

-decided to come to this park?

He didn't understand why he would’ve decided to come here and why he had ended up on the floor and why Tsukki wasn’t walking home with him. Why was he alone, here of all places?

"Yamaguchi." The voice isn't identifiable but makes him feel colder with dread anyway, a bubble of anxiety growing in his chest and making it hard to breathe. “We haven’t seen you in such a long time.”

While turning to face the voice, he feels kind of floaty, like gravity has decided he no longer deserves its force. He comes face to face with 3 boys, all of them looking like they’re around his age. He doesn’t recognise any of their faces but he knows who they are. 

He hasn’t seen them in years, not since childhood days filled with taunts and then, after one fateful day, pointed indifference but his head insists it’s them.

He feels so small.

They tower over him in his mind’s eye, tall enough, part of him thinks, that they’d make good volleyball players. Another part of him spitefully suggests they’d be better than him, that anyone would be better than him, without having any prior experience.

He feels so very small.

His first instinct is to run away. He was never good in fights, at least not in physical ones, and the thought of staying makes him sick to his stomach. However, no matter how much he wants to move, needs to move - right now - before they get any closer, he can’t move. He’s paralysed, just like last time, uselessly stuck in place as they get closer and closer. 

‘Please, just leave me alone.’

They surround him like vultures, faces blurring together. He sees his escape route shrinking, startling him into movement that is far too little, too late. The bullies laugh at the attempt, a sound that sticks and echoes in his head. He can’t help the shaking that overtakes him as anxiety eclipses his mind. 

“Look at him, we haven’t even done anything yet.” One of his personal demons jeers, stepping even closer into his personal space. He flinches away, desperate for those extra inches between them, stepping back directly into another one of them. He gets pushed back into the middle, disorientating him further as they keep circling, making it hard to focus on anything apart from his rapidly accelerating breathing and that damned coldness that had now rooted itself deep inside his heart.

“So odd seeing you without your human shield Yamaguchi,” one of the raven haired boys smirks, “how has Tsukishima been since you attached yourself to him like a parasite?” 

Any retort he could have given dies in his throat, making him wheeze in an attempt to get oxygen when his chest tightens painfully. The boys laugh again, ripping into his internal defences like knives through tissue paper.

He wishes he wasn’t alone, miraculously saved by someone else, anyone else, again.

He wishes Tsukki was here.

\---

It was hard to see and he’d nearly tripped over Hinata twice. The other had appeared from the fog rather suddenly, jumping and latching onto his back. Both the ginger pest and Nishinoya, who had appeared from the same direction seconds after, howled with laughter when he’d shouted in alarm and attempted to dislodge his passenger. 

Nishinoya had insisted they’d stick together then, which wasn’t an entirely stupid idea but one he didn’t have to like. It was how he’d ended up here, walking calmly as his two shortest teammates clowned around.

Not that Tsukishima knew where ‘here’ was.

Maybe that confusion was what made him more okay with his company. There was a strange uncertainty welling up in him at his surroundings.

He’d never admit it out loud but he did have the stray thought that Nishinoya’s presence had somehow managed to clear the fog and brighten their way, as illogical as that was.

Keeping this silent wasn’t out of character for him, preferring to think rather than speak, and so his companions left him to it. And he was thinking, mind racing.

He'd had volleyball practice and then he’d walked home with Yamaguchi.

So where was he?

Every time he thought he had the answer to that question, his surroundings seemed to change. The road to the school melding into the path leading to Yamaguchi’s house into the odd meadow that was behind his own house. It seemed familiar though, in the most abstract way possible, though it was hard to tell through the thickening fog.

Why was there even fog in the first place?

“Noya,” Hinata whines, a sharp turn of tone from the previous easy and mindless conversation Tsukishima had been tuning out, “why can’t we just stay here? I don’t like we don’t know what else is out there. ” Tsukishima is about to say a particularly witty remark, maybe call the other a coward - the usual - when he actually gets a proper look at the shortie. 

In simple terms, Hinata looks bad. There are red circles under eyes that he hadn’t noticed before, as if Hinata had been crying recently. Despite the ever present determination still in his eyes, the twinkle is dimmed significantly. It’s nearly enough to make him feel bad for the other. Nearly.

Nishinoya is keeping his high energy, despite whatever had happened with Hinata, and so he ruffles the ginger's hair before slinging an arm around his neck. “Come on Shoyo, we need to find the others and be their saviours!”

This, for some reason, seems to reinspire Hinata and the two run off ahead of him, leaving him confused.

What ‘others’?

\---

He knows he’s more afraid than he should be but he can’t help it. The fear is burning him from the inside, clashing with the unwavering cold in the most uncomfortable way possible. The bullies are so close. He’d forgotten how much his personal space had grown under the sharp glare of his friend until it’d been utterly disregarded in his absence.

And Yamaguchi knows he’s not a helpless little kid anymore, he should be able to stand up for himself, but he can’t. Every word out of their mouths is like an affirmation of his inner monologue, everything his head tells him whenever it can and any rebuttal is lost.

They haven’t actually hurt him but every nudge and push feels like it's leaving bruises and he’s always known words are a lot more effective weapons than fists.

“Coward,” they jeer around his head, “you’re not enough, you’ll never be enough.”

“S-stop” He doesn’t need them to say it, he doesn’t need to hear it to know it’s true.

“You can’t do anything right.”

“Quiet.” He wants them to stop. There’s a pressure building in his head and behind his eyes and he’s not sure what he will do if he breaks down right here, alone.

“Everyone knows you’re stupid.”

“I SAID SHUT UP.” There’s a ringing in his ear, sudden silence pressing down on his eardrums. He’s still shaking, there are tears in his eyes but his fists are clenched.

He is not a little kid anymore.

There’s uncertainty in the air now, an additional step between Yamaguchi and his bullies, and he uses it to breathe.

They’re still speaking, shouting other words to try and drag him down but they don’t seem that important anymore. 

His eyes flutter closed, blocking out his swimming vision. The breathing that had gotten erratic is under his control now, his focus manually slowing it down. His heart, which had been bruising his lungs, is still trying to beat itself out of his chest but it slows, very slightly.

Through the ringing in his ear and pressure in his chest, his lips quirk up into a smirk and he can’t help but snicker.

“Do you want to know what’s sad?” He says clearly, making them all fall silent more effectively than shouting had, “You’re putting so much effort into dragging down a pathetic, useless coward like me,” he opens his eyes and looks at the other 3, relishing slightly in the alarm that had taken residence in their expressions, “and it’s not working.”

“I don’t need you to tell me what I already know.” Failed serves, the Aoba Johsai match, the absolute despair as he stood frozen while the ball fell right in front of him, the numbness in his head when he decides to play it safe and serve normally, these moments flash in his mind. The more he lingers on these thoughts, the more he thinks of the memories of all his free time spent with Shimada, Hinata assuring him that he’ll earn them 10 points in a row next time he tries and Tsukki complimenting his jump float serve. 

“Actually, scratch that, I know I’m not useless. I’ve worked hard to prove that to myself and no one else.” He pushes his finger into one of the other boys’ chests, drawing himself to his full height. Now that he’s actually standing up to them, it’s terrifying but nothing would beat the fear he’d felt shouting at Tsukki so he pushes through it. The 3 bullies seem so insignificant in comparison. “So take your schoolyard insults and obvious insecurities and leave. Me. ALONE.” Each word is punctuated with a step that the bullies actually cringe away from, cleanly breaking the circle and leaving him with an exit.

He uses his opportunity, the bullies clearly frozen from shock, and moves away from them, fleeing towards the edge of the park, beyond the misty boundaries.

His insides feel molten. The shaking which he had managed to control returns full force and he isn’t sure if he wants to cry with relief or because of the insults stuck kniving into his brain. 

He attempts to relax his hands from fists, surprised to find that there are crescent indents in his palm, and moves them back onto his arms so that he’s hugging himself. 

“Yamaguchi?” His stomach swoops, managing to momentarily distract him from the cold lingering in his heart. In fact, his heart feels like it’s going to burst because if his friend is here, nothing else can go wrong. 

“Tsukki,” His head moves to look at the blonde so quickly, his vision goes blurry and his head spins. “I’m so glad to see you,” anything that was holding him back from speaking all of his thoughts disappears, “do you know how I got here, I was so sure that I was walking home with you but then I was at this park, alone and oh, Tsu-“

“Yamaguchi,” the blonde regards his shaking frame out the corner of his eye. “Shut up.”

Coming from anyone else, it would be like throwing salt on the wound but it nearly makes Yamaguchi cry with fondness. The interaction was like a pillar of stability and familiarity in the storming sea of his emotions. “Sorry Tsukki.” he answers dutifully, relief bleeding from every syllable. His body is still coursing with adrenaline and, while the moon provides no warmth, the light is enough of a start. He feels so tired. 

Yamaguchi steps towards his friend, ready to put all this behind him and ignore it ever happening. 

His legs had felt weak for a while but it’s still a shock when his right knee gives way under him.

Trying to regain his balance, he flails, hand reaching for the closest thing to him. It grasps empty air. 

Confused and nerves shot, he manages to force his leg to hold his weight and his head snaps up to look at his friend. “H-Huh?” Yamaguchi was sure he’d been closer before but the other wouldn’t have stepped away, surely.

Because of their positions, Tsukishima is looking directly down at him, the height difference painfully obvious. Normally, this is something Yamaguchi wouldn’t mind in the slightest but right now, it makes him a little uncomfortable. “How long do you think I’ve been standing here?” Even Yamaguchi cannot read the blonde's expression but nervousness creeps back into his system. 

“Tsukki?”

Tsukishima is blank. Yamaguchi can’t tell where this conversation is going. “Do you really think I didn’t hear what they were saying?” The insults had all blurred together, he can’t remember what had been said and what his insecurities had added in his mental recall. 

“I don’t understand-” His voice quivers on the finale syllable. He steps closer to his friend, searching for comfort subconsciously.

This time, he sees Tsukishima step back unapologetically.

“Who would have thought, Yamaguchi Tadashi, loving his ‘best friend’.”

He feels his racing heart stop dead in its tracks. The slight nervousness mixed with the steady, sure feeling that had filled him after he’d heard his friend's voice, that everything would be fine was a pedestal that he had fallen off into the depths of despair. The numbness spread throughout him with speed and efficiency. There was no more warmth and no more colour, just a cold stare and a cruel smile.


	2. abyss

Yamaguchi has had a fair amount of anxious breakdowns in his lifetime.

He’d still judge this one as one of the worst moments in his life.

There wasn't enough air in the world for him. Every moment was difficult and nausea had made him feel sick to his stomach. 

For a couple of seconds, foolish and delusional seconds, he considers Tsukki knowing his longest kept secret a good thing. It’s a weight that’s worth a lifetime off his shoulders. After such a long-lived burden, as much as Tsukki being in his life could ever be a burden, he’s almost relieved.

But then paranoia and reality kick in, hard. 

“I suddenly feel the need to ask, do you think I’m stupid?”

“Never.” Tsukki is the smartest person he knows. A stupid Tsukki was a juxtaposition, a paradox, an impossibility. Yamaguchi knows he’s rather dull in comparison to the blonde’s sharp wit but even the team’s idiots knew Tsukki’s intelligence as an undeniable truth. He wasn’t that dumb.

“But you did think I wouldn’t find out about this?” 

“I-” In retrospect it was stupid. With the way he was acting, his crush had probably been the most obvious thing in the world. The whole volleyball team probably laughed at his pining behind his back, pitying Tsukki for having to deal with such a needy shadow. 

“Is being my friend not enough for you Yamaguchi?”

“I’m sorry,” Yamaguchi manages to choke out, “It means the world to me, you mean the world-”

“Are you that selfish that you need even more of my attention?”

“Tsu-” He’s the one that cuts himself off this time, legs giving out from under him as his voice fails him. He falls onto his knees, hugging himself tighter with his still shaking arms, eyes unfocused.

“Feeling desperate?” The malicious teasing tone of voice Yamaguchi had heard directing at so many others was being directed at him now. Was this Karma for letting it happen countless times, encouraging the other with his laughter? His eyes shoot up, locking his gaze with the blonde. The full extent of his position hits him under that merciless gaze and he burns with mortification. “Begging for forgiveness as usual?”

“I’m sorry Tsukki-” he fumbles with his words slightly, correcting the nickname in penance, “-shima.” He can’t bear to hold his friends gaze any longer, looking at the floor when he continues speaking like the coward that he is. “I shouldn’t have ever thought you’d sink to my level, liking a boy, but-”

“Your apology would be a little easier to accept if you didn’t insult me in it.” 

Yamaguchi can’t help the confused noise he makes at those words nor the pained whine he gives when Tsukishima grabs his chin and roughly tilts it up to look him in the eye. His hands are harsh and cold, forcing his head back so far it’s uncomfortable. It makes Tsukishima look unnaturally tall and completely in control.“It’s not that I haven’t ‘sunk to your level’, I’m perfectly comfortable in my sexuality, it’s just that,” he pauses to laugh to himself, Yamaguchi’s heart quivering with a sliver of traitorous hope, “why did the thought that I’d ever look at you cross your mind? It’s laughable, really, just the idea.”

The words are like a catalyst. He’d been falling apart for what felt like aeons, since he’d first heard his name called by one of his bullies, but now it was like his world had shattered around him.

He can’t hear anything over the ringing in his ears or see through the tears, his brain screeching to a halt at the lack of oxygen. He’s floating, unable to feel anything around him. He distantly realises he’s sobbing.

His lungs are burning.

He’s dying.

This is it. He’s dying of a broken heart at the hands of his best friend. A half-formed thought, insane in nature, muses that it was a kind of romantic way to go. The rest of his thoughts scream in unison, reminding him that Tsukishima hates him now.

He doesn’t know how much time has passed. His thoughts go past faster than he can properly think them. One thing reverberates around his head, the absolute rejection replaying on loop. It’s no trick or misunderstanding.

It’s the cold hard truth.


End file.
